With the announcement of Patrik Laine’s contract on Friday, hearing that Kyle Connor had ended the final summer stalemate for the Winnipeg Jets late Saturday night allowed everyone involved a chance to breathe.

A summer of uncertainty, which bled into the infancy of fall, was over.

The team’s vaunted forward contingent would remain intact. The goals will come. In droves, probably.

So, was it all worth it?

At the end of the day, the astronomical numbers that some believed the Jets (and other teams with the rights to big-ticket restricted free agents) were being forced to mull over didn’t come to fruition.

Laine didn’t command $10 million. Connor didn’t get $9 million. There were no impasses into December. Both contracts came in under $15 million combined and general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff wasn’t backed into a corner with an offer sheet.

The hype train limped across the finish line.

Was it all ideal?

In perfect circumstances, the Jets would have signed both players to team-friendly eight-year deals, à la Josh Morrissey, and closed the books on both contracts for a long time.

Laine’s two-year bridge comes with risk on both sides.

If Laine is given what he wants (and what he needs) — an elite centre — and scores 50 goals alongside Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler, for instance, his AVV in the summer of 2021 is going to reach eight-figures.

If not, and there’s still some uncertainty around Laine, who will be 23 when his new deal is up, the team will be thrust into a position to ponder his qualifying offer that begins at $7.5 million.

Laine’s AAV mirrors that of Tampa’s Brayden Point. Point scored 40-plus goals and had 90-plus points last season, or 0.86 points per game to Laine’s 0.78.

Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk received an extra year on his bridge and $250,000 more, bringing his AAV to an even $7 million with an identical 0.78 points per game mark as Laine.

In Vancouver, meanwhile, Brock Boeser signed a three-year deal at nearly $1 million less than Laine’s ($5.88 million) and he had 0.83 points per game.

Laine’s ability to score goals isn’t really in question. His ability to do so consistently is. Laine had 21 goals in 24 games to start last season and then scored just nine in the remaining 58 games he played.

How does one pinpoint his value with fluctuations like that?

His 110 goals in 237 games since entering the league in 2016 is only behind Alex Ovechkin and Nikita Kucherov in that span, so that helps understand why he was wanting big money. It’s the big picture for him.

But was his 44-goal season in 2017-18 the exception and was last year’s 30 goal campaign the rule? And what of his defensive game? It’s all well and good he can score, but how much of that is mitigated if he’s a liability elsewhere.

Laine’s possession numbers are far off his contemporaries who inked bridge contracts this summer. His defensive statistics, meanwhile, leave much to be desired.

The Jets need the Laine of late March and into the playoffs, where he showed he could run with Scheifele and Wheeler and be responsible in the defensive zone.

That’s where the gold mine lies for Laine.

* * * * *

Connor’s progression to the NHL is the perfect advertisement for the team to use for players who get sent down to the minors.

Essentially, it goes, “Keep your head down, handle your business and graduate rather quickly to the top line.” Loosely.

Whether or not that’s realistic for every Winnipeg prospects is debatable, but Connor did everything right when he didn’t make the club out of training camp two years ago.

Since then, he’s worked himself into a $50 million deal after back-to-back 30-goal seasons.

Connor’s top comparables, according to CapFriendly, are Arizona’s Clayton Keller, Boston’s David Pastrnak, teammate Nikolaj Ehlers and Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau.

Keller, who’s the closest match, signed earlier this month on an eight-year deal worth a $7.15 million AAV — a number many believed would be the blueprint for Winnipeg’s 22-year-old sniper.

Connor’s contract came in at $7.14 million AVV and one less year of term.

Connor gets the benefit of having played alongside Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler for much of his NHL career at this point. Naturally, his offensive numbers are superior to those of Keller, a centre, who’s played with lesser linemates.

Connor, however, is a better defensive player, if only marginally.

Connor vs. Keller (2016-19):

48.53 CF% 48.28 48.10 xGF% 48.15 0.94 G/60 0.68 1.9 P/60 1.61

Strip away the comparables for a second and you’ll find that Connor got paid the market rate for goals and ice-time — the numbers that seem to matter when it comes to negotiating term and AAV these days.

In just raw goals and assists, Connor (67 goals, 128 points in 178 games played) and Keller (37 goals, 114 points in 167 games played) aren’t far off from each other.

Overpaid? Underpaid? These are questions that can (and will) be debated in the short- and long-term for Connor.

But he contributes to goals, more last season than anyone not named Scheifele. His offensive value, like Laine, is there. It’s the defensive side, also like Laine, that needs work.

In the end, Laine’s deal allows him to put last season in the rearview and bet on himself over the next two seasons with an eye on a massive payoff.

For Winnipeg, it allows two more years to figure out exactly what they have in Laine. It’s easy to forget that Laine is just 21 years old. His overall game needs to improve, and that will be the focus on both sides going forward.

With Connor, they get a 22-year-old that will be a Jet during his prime years.

Just two seasons in, he’s carved out a role on Winnipeg’s top line and scored 30 or more in each of those seasons. Yes, his defensive game needs some work, but like Laine, there’s time for that to grow. Connor is only 22.

Most importantly, the team’s attention can now focus solely on what’s happening on the ice after a training camp that had myriad distractions.

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